Comment by fredley | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fredley | Hacker News Reader

I still wear my pebbles daily (one at a time!). I'll be loath to replace them when the time finally comes, nothing else comes close to the perfect balance of including what I want in a watch and excluding what I don't want. So many other watches out there, including the Apple watch and every Android watch are packed full of crap I actively don't want cluttering up my wrist.

It takes guts to make a device with push-buttons in a touch-screen world, but in every way they're a better interface for a 1" screen, that is totally obscured by most digits.

It also takes guts to use a dull e-ink screen, but it's perfect - always on, battery lasts for a week (still!), and combined with the beautiful animations of the OS it looks fantastic.

I wish there were more device companies out there with the guts to use mature, if slightly dated tech to build amazing products, rather than try and make everything voice activated just because they can, even if it makes for a worse experience over all.

I dearly miss my Pebble Steel, but arguably the dial + buttons + touch screen combination on the Samsung Gear Sport I got as a replacement provides a better interface.

Shame it'll die in 4 months :(

Fitbit are finally shutting down the servers, and who knows what effect that'll have.

Xiaomi's Mi Band/Amazfit bands are probably the only good options left.

I had a Mi Band 1 for 2.5 years before it died, and I'm currently running a Mi Band 2. It has a 20 day battery life and has good third party app support.

Do you have a link with a list/information about third-party apps supporting them? Can't find a good overview.

You can use gadgetbridge, it's available on fdroid! I use it all the time, no pebble app for me.

I still miss some thing from Gadgetbridge, like the inability to use some apps that requires Internet access (ie: HTTP Push) that I used to control my BlinkStick light status indicator at work.

I personally use Tools and Mi Band https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.zdenekhorak... due to its ease of use and reliability.

No always on clock? :(

My Mi Band 2 doesn't have an always-on clock, but it has "lift wrist to view info". I'm not sure about the Amazfit devices.

From the Fitbit blog post on the topic, it looks like the effect will be nill for me. Can’t buy new apps? Don’t care. It appears that day to day use will continue uninterrupted, at least for me.

Buttons are important for me, especially when a touch screen would be inefficient when wearing gloves in the harsh cold winter climate of Canada.

And the display, while not flashly as an LCD, enabled the battery life, which to me is more important.

Check out http://rebble.io/ - it's made by some ex-Pebblers and other Pebble fans to keep your watches running.

And this is why I didn't buy a Pebble. I'm basically not prepared to buy a smart watch at this point unless its software is open source. Otherwise you're completely at the mercy of the company's (mis)fortunes.

Incidentally, as I write this I'm wearing the first watch I purchased for myself ~20 years ago. It's still running strong with zero maintenance. On the other hand (wrist?) both my smartwatches have been consigned to the drawer of random curiosities.

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